COSO
A U.S.-based organization dedicated to improving *corporate governance and *financial reporting. The COSO Web site describes the organization’s aims of "improving the quality of financial reporting through business ethics, effective internal controls, and corporate governance." Founded in 1985 to sponsor the National Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, which produced the *Treadway Commission Report (1987), COSO comprises five U.S. accounting and auditing organizations: the *American Accounting Association, the *American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, *Financial Executives International, the *Institute of Internal Auditors, and the *Institute of Management Accountants (known as the National Association of Accountants in the 1980s). In 2003 the chair of COSO was John Flaherty.
In addition to the *Treadway Commission Report, other landmark COSO publications include the 1992 report *Internal Control - Integrated Framework (often referred to as the COSO Report), and the 1999 report *Fraudulent Financial Reporting: 1987-1997 (Beasley et al., 1999), a follow-up to the original Treadway Commission Report. At the time of this writing, in 2003, an ongoing COSO project is the development of an *enterprise risk management framework.
Further reading: Beasley et al. (1999); COSO (1992); Treadway Commission (1987)
Web site: www.coso.org

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